Creator
James Corning
Title
Local Anesthesia in General Medicine and Surgery.
Coverage
New York
Publisher
Appleton and Co.
Date
1886
Description
James Corning was an American neurologist known mainly for his early experiments on neuraxial blockade. When the American Civil War began in 1861, Corning’s family moved to Stuttgart, Germany. Corning experimented with regional anesthesia. Like the ether controversy that was swirling around in the mid-19th century, so, too, was there controversy about who was the first to describe local anesthesia. In 1884 Karl Koller described the anesthetic properties of cocaine. In 1898 August Bier performed surgery under spinal anesthesia. Following the publication of Bier’s experiments, a controversy developed about whether Corning or Bier had performed the first successful spinal anesthetic. In this book, Corning avoids the controversy as he discusses local anesthesia and pain.